


what you found

by izabellwit



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dreams, F/M, Gen, Healing, Look At Your Life Look At Your Choices, Memory Related, Minor Canonical Character(s), Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Lives, Past Relationship(s), Redemption, Self-Reflection, Spoilers: Volume 7 (RWBY), in which oz relives his life and tries to figure out what went wrong, oz deserves a real nap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izabellwit/pseuds/izabellwit
Summary: What did Oz see, when he locked himself away? And what convinced him to return?
Relationships: Glynda Goodwitch & Ozpin, Ozpin & Oscar Pine
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	what you found

**Author's Note:**

> How about that volume 7 soundtrack?? Until the End has to be my favorite. The vocals??? The quiet fear and resolve?? The LYRICS??? Holy shit, y'all.
> 
> Oz is forever an interesting character to me. I hope we see more of him come volume 8!
> 
> Note: Ozpin/Ozma is referred to (mainly) as Oz, for reasons.

Here is the thing about going away: it is quiet.

A step back in a more mental sense; the shut door of a soul. It is impossible to be truly asleep, of course—impossible to be truly gone, being one with a shared soul—but it is a kind of sleeping, in a way. A sort of burial. Locked away deep in memory and dreaming and regret, aware of what is happening only when Oscar’s fear spikes and Oz himself cannot justify just looking away. For what if the boy died? What if this incarnation, too—and would Oscar even survive it, what would it be like, and the idea of opening his eyes in a new incarnation, the cycle started over, Oscar dead because Oz _could not be bothered to help—_

He’s starting to realize how far he’s fallen. He doesn’t want to fall any further. 

But still. It is so quiet.

At the moment, Oz is sitting in an office. His office. Leaning against that silly chair Qrow got him for a joke and Oz cheerfully pretended not to realize, holding a mug of cocoa and looking out into the empty space of the room. The windows surrounding him are open, whited out with sunlight glare; Oz doesn’t dare look through them. Beyond the sunshine there is only smoke.

He is Ozpin, for now, his fingers tapping on the desk. No sound. The drink in his mug is cold and has no taste; even the sense of sitting here is more memory than real physicality. He swirls his drink in the cup and stares down blankly at his desk. 

“I must admit,” says Glynda. She’s standing with her arms crossed, expression sour. “Of all the foolish things, even _this_ took me by surprise.”

Oz laughs very softly. Glynda is not real, of course; she is memory made manifest, but he cannot help but indulge himself, to look up and smile and pretend he is not alone. “Truly?” he says. “I would have thought, you of all people… would expect this from me most of all.”

“More fool me,” Glynda snaps back. “I always took you to be practical. Stupid of me.”

“Yes.” Oz’s eyes drop. “I… I thought it was practical. It was. I—”

“You don’t even know yourself, do you?”

His mouth snaps shut. He doesn’t answer.

Glynda walks up to him. Her heels snap. “Ozpin,” she says, and it is almost pitying. “Running won’t solve a thing.”

“I...”

Glynda leans over him. “Try again,” she informs him, no-nonsense and sharp, and the memory snaps, breaks apart, flies away.

.

He is standing in a hallway, grand and furnished; this memory too, recently relived, is more vivid than ever. He knocks on a door. He calls his daughters to him.

“We have to go now,” he tells them, in a whisper. The words have to be pried from his throat. Salem will—he doesn’t know what Salem will do. She will be angry. She will—

This will hurt her.

And yet. His hands shake, and he tells them anyway. “Go on,” he says. “Go, go. We need to go.”

“Dad? What’s happening?”

His eldest: so clever, so quick, so eager to please. He smooths back her hair. “We’re leaving,” he tells her. “We’re going away.”

Her small hand grips his sleeve. She holds on. They look back together, at her littler sisters, and when she turns back to him her eyes are solemn and fearful, as if, in some secret part of her heart, she already knows what will happen to her. To all of them.

“Dad,” she says, hushed. “Why are you running?”

Oz flinches. The memory breaks.

.

The weight of the crown sits heavy on his brow; the staff in his hands burns with relentless energy. The sword, in contrast, seems to drain it. He feels exhausted, drained, furious. This war has gone on too long. This war has gone on long enough. 

He does not want to be here again; he did not mean to relive this. He moves as if in a dream. He remembers— the surety, the exhaustion, the dull resolve.

This war has gone on for far too long.

He lifts the sword with a heavy heart, and swings.

.

There is a panic so sharp it nearly stings, fear like a bitter flavor. Oscar is panicking. Someone is falling. 

_We’re going to crash, we’re going to crash, we’re going to—!_

He has reached for Oz before, but not like this: this is a lance, a sharp burst of panic like a starburst, and Oz reaches back on instinct. _What if the boy dies?_ No, he thinks. No. 

“Calm down,” he says. “Calm down, Oscar. Listen—”

The plane lands. The boy survives, hands shaking on the airship controls. The situation is filtering through, pieces at a time. The trouble with getting to Atlas, Jaune Arc and Qrow, their attempt at an escape rapidly spiraling.

He should stay. He should stay. He should—

There is a sense like looking back, as if Oscar is searching for him. _Where are you?_

But Oz is already out of reach.

.

He sits on the bed he died in that first life, before it all went wrong. Salem is sitting beside him—the Salem he cannot help but remember fondly, golden hair and blue eyes, a kinder smile. Ozma shakes his head. “Was I wrong?” he asks her, unable to help himself. “All these centuries. All these years. I didn’t want them to lose hope, I, I didn’t want—”

“For them to be afraid?” Salem lifts her head. Her eyes are dry. She reaches for his face. She smiles. “Oh, Ozma. Let us be honest. You didn’t want them to be you.”

“I—”

“And you didn’t want them to be me,” Salem says. Even in this memory, she is tainted, cold and cruel. Even here, he cannot remember her kindly. “It’s so much harder to feel betrayed if you never trusted them in the first place, isn’t it?”

He stares at her. “I… I have good reasons for this. For the things I’ve done. I have every reason—”

“Experience?” Salem is still smiling. She puts her hand on his shoulder, and for a moment he can feel the prick of claws. “Or fear? Both are such lovely teachers, don’t you think?”

He can’t answer.

“I’ve taught you well,” Salem says, laughing. This time he breaks the memory himself. He doesn’t want to look at her.

.

It’s only sometimes dreaming; sometimes it’s just being. Sometimes it’s like nothing at all, just echoes of things. Oscar is a distant blur of feeling, whispers of worry, snatches of laughter. Fear for Mantle, desperation to make things better, a growing yet reluctant acceptance that Oz is probably not coming back. (Oz winces, at that.)

Sometimes it is lighter. Moments of warmth, of training with the others; he is staying with Team JNR more and more, and snippets come through: silly jokes and experimental drinks and aura training. An election comes and goes, and Oz tracks the progress through Oscar’s horror—the worst case scenario. Things are starting to spiral.

There is a whisper in the back of his mind, a plea. He should help. He should. And yet—

Things are getting worse. The distant call of sirens and Grimm. Oscar and Ruby Rose have chosen to trust Ironwood with the full truth. They have decided to trust the whole city with the truth, the whole world. Everyone.

None of what the boy has done is what Oz would have recommended. None of what the boy is doing is what Oz would have done. 

He is not aware enough to watch. Not quite awake enough to see the effects of these choices. But he can feel, like a distant echo, the boy’s hope. His resolve. 

_What if it all goes wrong?_ Oz could ask. He doesn’t. He thinks, on some level, he already knows what Oscar will say.

This isn’t how things were supposed to go, Oz thinks. He’s not sure why he thinks that. He’s not sure why it matters, or why it feels like a loss, like giving something up. A vulnerability. A weakness. A way for Salem to bring them all down onto their knees. 

“We have to try,” Oscar tells Ironwood. He is afraid too, but his hands don’t shake. His voice is firm. The boy is afraid, but he leaves the room with his head high. He has faith in team RWBY, in Mantle, in the world. 

He has faith.

.

This memory, faded, blurred by the stories told and the ache of time— this memory, still, he holds close to him. The long wooden table, the full plates. The way the trees arch above his head, twisting branches, and how the twilight casts it all in a shadowy softness.

The sisters clutter by the table; they giggle and steal from each others’ plates and kick their heels over the overgrown grasses. The girl who tended his garden tugs at his hair, and chides him for not taking better care of it; the quiet girl hums under her breath as she sips at her drink. The cheerful one kicks her legs in the air, and smiles at him like she has a secret.

And before him, at the end of the table: the final sister. She’d arrived in the last months of autumn; with her sisters they had stayed with him until the winter thawed to spring. She has dirt beneath her fingernails, and a glow to her smile that reminds him of his daughters.

“What’s with that sort of talk?” the last of the sisters says. She is a woman with dark hair and brighter eyes; she puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head at him. “You silly old man. Look around you!” She opens her arms, gesturing to all the world, and he cannot help but stare. “You have so _much!”_

And even now, after all these years, Oz finds he has nothing to say to that at all.

.

He sits at the table and looks at his hands, the plans for the cane drawn in front of him. It is only an idea, still, in this memory. Only a wish. This incarnation would not truly finish the cane until his hair was gray.

There is the creak of a floorboard behind him; arms wrap around his shoulders. Her sigh is soft. “You’ve always been a bit secretive.”

He stares at the table, mind whirling. “Did it bother you?” he asks, honestly helpless. “I tried…”

“And that’s why it didn’t bother me.”

He twists to look at her, incredulous. She laughs and takes his hand. “You tried!” she says. “The both of you. You wanted to tell me. You wanted to trust me.”

“I was terrible at it,” he whispers, remembering. “None of my explanations made sense, and all we did was panic you—”

“But you told me.” She clutches his hand, and smiles. “Did you regret it?”

“…No.”

This table, dimly lit—her presence, warm and solid. Above their heads he can hear the patter of feet, the children crying war. The creak of the carts from the road outside. This place he found, and left behind, and called home forevermore.

They sit there, a moment. She links their fingers, humming. He watches her do this, and tries to understand. 

“We are all set to lose something,” she says, softly, as if sharing in a secret. “Something, somewhere, along the way. We can’t ever stay the same—for you, especially!” Her smile softens. “But some things are worth finding again, don’t you think?”

He stares at their hands, interlocked. He hears her laughter.

“You were happy once,” she says. “Oh, Oz. You used to have faith.”

He closes his eyes.

.

“I don’t know if you’re listening, still,” Oscar says, voice quiet. The boy is standing in an elevator, hands folded over the Long Memory. He doesn’t shake. He barely even speaks. Slowly, the world descends around them. He is going to the vault. He is trying to change Ironwood’s mind. “Maybe you’re already gone? I guess I wouldn’t know, either way.”

Oz says nothing.

“I can do this,” Oscar tells himself, tells Oz. “I can. I’ve learned how to do this.” He’s staring at his own reflection, watching his own eyes. Maybe they are more gold than green. Maybe not. “But it’d be easier, I think, if I wasn’t doing this alone.”

Oz doesn’t answer. Oz isn’t there.

And Oscar says, “Just a thought.”

.

Oz opens his eyes.

“Well?” Glynda remarks, snappish. She arches an eyebrow at him. He leans forward in the desk chair and links his fingers, and regards her seriously over the rim of his spectacles. 

“I’ve forgotten,” he tells her, finally. “I don’t know… I don’t know how to remember it.”

Glynda looks at him. The irritation fades from her face. Her arms fall loose by her side.

“Well,” she says. “Ozpin, if you want my advice— _”_

“Always.”

“Wake up, then. And learn how to remember it.”

He stills. Glynda shakes her head at him. “And find _me,_ too, while you're at it,” she adds, no-nonsense. “You fool. Ask me back in reality, and maybe you’ll get a better answer. Hm?”

He stares at her. Glynda rolls her eyes. 

“Well?” she says. She lifts a brow. “I’m waiting.”

.

It’s quiet, all of it. Feeling and memory alike—and maybe that is why the waking too is quiet. A gunshot and a sharp breath and the whistle of the wind as they fall—all the noise swallowed up by the vault, all the world unending. Oscar, falling, half-gone already. 

And Oz wakes up.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I really want to know more about Oz's past lives, and the people he used to know. I considered adding some headcanons of mine to this memory lane, but in the end decided to stick with canon... maybe I'll write a fic about those ideas some other time. (Still, RWBY book of fairytales. I'm eyeing you. Ten bucks says we're getting a lore drop.... pleaseeee let us get a lore drop....)
> 
> Also, Glynda. I love Glynda. She is the BEST. I miss her every day.
> 
> [If you wanna rec this fic, you can reblog it here!!](https://izaswritings.tumblr.com/post/625292707015933952/title-what-you-found-fandom-rwby-synopsis-what) Also, if you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


End file.
